This morning, I woke up at 11.45 – a full three hours and forty-five minutes after I had intended. On top of all that, it was pouring outside and whenever it’s raining, I never want to leave my bed, let alone the apartment. I think I realized it was a mistake that I didn’t make all of my negatives the night before, because at 11.45, I was panicking to get everything together so I could go to the Main building and print my cyanotypes. Talk about being unprepared. Half way through the printing of the negatives, I had the realization that I didn’t necessarily have to go. It’s so dangerous for me to realize that I’m not obligated to be anywhere. All of my willpower just flies out the window. After a marathon two days in the Dolphing building screenprinting and as a result, lowering my life expectancy…I figure I could use the break. Of course, I still have to make up for the lost work. I can’t ever let myself relax (haha, that would be too easy). So I decided that I would spend the day working on all of my negatives for Alternative Process and cut paper/print negatives for my Letterpress final too. Way to rationalize a potentially procrastinatory decision (I gave myself a pat on the back after that one)! Ususally, when I have such delusions of grandeur, they blow up in my face, but today has been relatively calm. I’m still printing negatives, though I did take a break for a trip to Office Depot (needed more ink jet transparencies and another black ink cartridge). And now, while I’m waiting for things to print, I’m going to post some pictures of the screenprinting that I did this weekend.

The red print, in a more finished state, though far from being done. I plan on doing another layer of scribbly shading on the mountain shapes before I throw the halftone on there. I’m a little nervous about what Nick is going to think about the halftones and their hard edges. He really hit the nail on the head when he said that it’s unlike me to have it there. I’m actually surprised that he said that because he hasn’t known me for very long and isn’t too familiar with my artwork to know that it’s a…pet peeve? of mine to have hard edged elements in my work. Is it that obvious? Anyway, it’s going to be a nice change (maybe) and if it’s not, then at least I tried it.

The blue print (haha, get it? I couldn’t resist) and it’s first five layers. I got really excited about doing a print that’s darker in color than all of the others. I don’t know why, it’s pretty dorky of me to even say that. But the shading on the mountain shapes! It’s blue! And it’s so…awesome and subtle. I had no idea it was going to look good at all, I never plan these things. But it does and, man, am I happy I did that. Then I had to go and fuck it all up with the halftone. I can’t completely blame my gunky screen, though that was part of it. Part of the reason why it’s so poorly done is because I didn’t dilute my ink enough. I can never tell with white how opaque it is, and I probably put a little too much in there. Granted, I did want it to be opaque enough to cover the mountain parts…a little more extender base wouldn’t have hurt. Anyways, the mistake is easily solved. I had intentions of drawing over this halftone image from the beginning. The image is pretty poor quality, so the halftone didn’t have as much detail as all of the others. Not a bad fix, if I do say so myself.

Check out the bad ass subtlety! And the corner of the halftone. I really like the white on top of the blue.

I had this thought about layering all sorts of crazy things at the bottom of this print when I was in Dolphin and couldn’t get out of there fast enough to go and put that plan into action. The yellow/white blob at the bottom is bleached out from the cyanotype itself, using ordinary powder laundry detergent and water. It’s really tricky to do with the screenprinting already on the paper, so next time around, all the bleaching is going to happen before I print. Last time I bleached a cyanotype, I had part of the print in my sink, dampened, and then I sprinkled the detergent on the damp parts. You get a lot better control that way – whenever you want it to stop bleaching, turn the faucet on and wash off all the detergent (quickly!). A brush and water don’t really cut it.

I finished my piece for the TAC Gallery 5×5 show not too long ago –

Finished canvas, unglazed at this point.

My hand, after finishing my 5×5 canvas. I often use my fingers to blend colors. Another reason why I like acrylic more – less dangerous!

Glazed. I like the soft quality it gives the colors.